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- Title
Back to the Future: Oedipus as Time Traveller.
- Authors
Gordon, Andrew
- Abstract
Back to the Future, the biggest Hollywood hit of 1985, owes its success to a great degree, like that of Star Wars, to its ritualistic, celebratory, therapeutic aspects. It is a ‘clean’ family film which encourages audience participation and repeat viewing. Yet, paradoxically, this ‘clean’ film flirts with incest. It is structured much like classic Hollywood fantasies such as It's a Wonderful Life and The Wizard of Oz, and also relies on the conventions of television situation comedy. Through comedy, the film successfully combines and defuses contemporary American anxieties about times travel and incest. It is the first SF film to make explicit the incestuous possibilities that have always been at the heart of our fascination with time travel. Back to the Future both provides a comic resolution to an œdipal crisis and reinforces the traditional American belief that history can change, that time and human character are malleable.
- Subjects
BACK to the Future (Film : 1985); MOTION pictures &; ethics; FILM criticism; FAMILY films; ACTION &; adventure films; SOCIALISM &; motion pictures
- Publication
Science Fiction Studies, 1987, Vol 14, Issue 3, p372
- ISSN
0091-7729
- Publication type
Article